2-out-of-3 Secret Sharing Scheme Using Visual Cryptography

Abstract

With the rapid advancement of network technology, the security of secret data is threatened because anyone may tend to intrude the system or eavesdrop via the communication channel. Most secret sharing schemes are based on cryptography such that the encryption and decryption processes need high computation costs. Visual cryptography, a kind of secret sharing schemes, differs from traditional secret sharing in terms of the efficient decryption process. It encrypts a secret image into several shares and then it can be recovered not only computer but also human visual system. This paper presents 2-out-of-3 secret sharing method by using bit-level decomposition which can be applied to binary, gray-scale and color images. The secret is reconstructed by stacking the encrypted shares the secret image becomes clearly visible. Secret image is divided into three image shares. These shares are distributed to each of three users. Any two or all image shares can be stacked together to recover the original image perfectly.